What the Trail Reveals When You Stop Looking at the View
Some of the most important things hiking has taught me have had nothing to do with distance, elevation or gear.
They have come from the harder moments. The summit that took an hour when it should have taken twenty minutes. The pass where I wanted to quit. The spur where I turned to Julie and said I couldn’t go on. The flight home where a magazine article changed everything.
These essays are where I write about that version of hiking. Not the highlight reel, but the interior experience, what happens when the trail becomes a mirror, when the body refuses to cooperate, when the mountains ask something of you that fitness alone can’t answer.
If you have ever stood on a trail and felt something shift, not in your legs but somewhere deeper, these pieces are for you.
The Gap Between the Plan and the Country
Read more →Most hiking incidents aren’t caused by recklessness. They’re caused by reasonable decisions made within a frame of reference that quietly stopped matching the actual situation.
The Agreement Between Me and My Body
Read more →A personal account of what happens when the body you have spent years learning to trust stops cooperating — on one of Australia’s great long-distance trails, and again a decade later, weeks before the biggest trek of the year.
The Version of Hiking We Rarely Show
Read more →Hiking isn’t all summits and smiles. From screaming into the void on the Razor ridgeline to falling apart in Peru, this is the version we don’t post.
How the Andes Humbled Me: A Trek That Got in My Head
Read more →I went into the Huayhuash Circuit confident and underprepared. Not in my legs — in my head. This is what the Andes revealed about hiking from empty.
The Allure of Long-Distance Trails: Finding Solace in the Wild
Read more →Why trade comfort for blisters and sweat? A personal reflection on what long-distance hiking does to a person, and why discomfort is often the point.
